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TALLAHASSEE, FL – Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that he has begun a process to collect relevant supporting data and information that will allow the State of Florida and its agencies to begin, as soon as possible, periodically billing BP for calculated losses caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“We need to start tallying up the costs now so we can begin aggressively pursuing recoveries for our state sooner rather than later,” said Attorney General McCollum.

Many of the costs associated with the oil spill can be quantified by state or federal statute, including the damages due for oiled wildlife, affected coral, and other damaged or destroyed parts of the state’s environment and ecosystems.

The Attorney General announced the initiative at a meeting today with former Attorneys General Bob Butterworth and Jim Smith, key agency staff, and interested parties. The meeting included discussion of the claims process; current and expected environmental and economic impacts; the documentation necessary to establish immediate and long term losses; agency efforts on data collection; and considerations important to any necessary legal and enforcement actions. Additionally, the Attorney General renewed his call for BP to establish an interest-earning escrow account with $2.5 billion for Florida claims and damages.

The Attorney General also sent a letter to members of Congress today asking them to consider legislation to exempt oil spill payments made to Floridians by BP from Calendar Year 2010’s income tax. Exempting these payments from federal income tax would supplement the relief now being considered under the proposed Gulf Coast Oil Spill Loss Carryback amendment. Along with eliminating a federal tax burden, the Florida corporate income tax on those payments would automatically be waived as it is based on federal taxable income. By providing a federal tax benefit, the proposed legislation would help all adversely affected Floridians to feed their families, make their mortgage payments, and sustain themselves while their livelihood is at risk due to the oil spill.

A copy of the letter is available online at: http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/MRAY-86FKCM/$file/TaxReliefLtr.pdf